The secret to getting more website traffic. (updated)

Getting website traffic is one of the more challenging aspects of building a successful business website. It is also happens to be one the most important aspect of any successful site.

Traffic is quickly becoming one of the hottest commodities in the global economy.

After all, if you control the traffic, you probably have the gold!

So how do we get more traffic for our websites?

The best strategy that I have found is usually a mixture of organic traffic via consistent blogging and content creation, combined and supported by paid traffic via Facebook or Google. Paid ads can provide immediate traffic while an organic blogging strategy can provide long term sustainable growth and traffic.

This is all underwritten by the assumption that you have a good website with good content, clear offers and most importantly reputable analytics software installed and working on your site like Google analytics. Analytics software can help you keep track of your website performance in very powerful ways.

You’ve probably heard about Search Engine Optimization or SEO for short, and if you haven’t you will soon. SEO has been a buzzword for the last five years and has spawned an entire industry. The trouble is, hiring an SEO expert is expensive, and the problem is, often times what works for SEO today to get you ranking in the search engines can sometimes change over time. Because of this, I recommend that you avoid “black hat” or shady practices that promise to somehow artificially boost your rankings in the search engines.

You can hire an SEO person to optimize your site, or you can do it yourself, but really here is what it getting long term organic traffic comes down to:

1. Unique high quality content: A website full of high quality, authoritative content is the foundation for any successful website. Think about your content strategy, and take some time to develop a plan of attack for your content. Good website content is informative, entertaining and broken up with bullet points, headlines and compelling images. Don’t forget video too!

2. High Quality Backlinks: Backlinks are a way that search engines gauge your authority on the web. For instance if you had a website/blog that specialized in finance, and you had top ranking websites like Forbes and CNN’s Money magazine linking back or referring to articles on your finance site, Google would then see your site as more authoritative and increase your pagerank. Pagerank is just a fancy way of saying what score your website has in the eyes of search engines like Google. The best way to get quality backlinks and to build pagerank is to write high quality authoritative content and share it with others via sites of similar interest and the plethora of social media sites available to you at no cost!

3. A Well organized site: Site structure is important mainly so Google and other search engine robots can effectively read, rank and index your site according to what is most important. A well organized site includes a proper and logical hierarchy with common page names like Home, About Us, Contact, Store, Shop, etc. In keeping with this logical hierarchy, your articles and web pages should include relevant header tags and keywords related to your topic. You will want to ensure you have a well organize sitemap setup as well.

4. Social interaction: More and more, search engines are looking to popular social media sites like Facebook and Youtube for “social signals” about your website and your brand. The more you engage with social media the better. It costs nothing to setup a Facebook page and a Youtube channel. If you are just getting started and you are wondering where the best places to get free traffic from is. Youtube and Facebook are usually the best places to start.

At the end of the day, don’t get too caught up in things like pagerank and SEO. Keep your focus on real, meaningful connections with your customers and prospects. This has been, and what always will be what drives successful business. Of course, one of the best ways to connect with potential customers is to consistently write or create high quality content and video. So: Connection, Content and sharing Got it?